3rd-4th August - North Wales

My trip started at Dwgfylchi on the morning of Friday 3rd August.  My walk of around 9 or so miles started out up the Penmaenbach arete, a grade 1+ scramble which, following the line in Ashton's guide, I found most enjoyable.

limestone goodness

 perched precariously on the ridge

 Looking towards The Quarry Villages

 looking across Conwy Bay to The Orne

I topped off Penmaenbach in what felt like no time, the walk back around towards Bwlch Swchnant is just lovely

 looking back, this little track is so picturesque 

for fans of latch technology

I made my way around the hills at the back of the bay on the well waymarked North Wales Path, passing a magnificent stone circle and encountering many Carneddau Ponies who were really quite tame and calm, and not overly shy.  A touch of drizzle set in so I didn't get many photos but its a lovely area to walk through, very vast and open and reminiscent of the Yorkshire Dales where I spent many of my teenage years, but with a population of wild ponies, the sea on the one side and the Carneddau mountains on the other.  The area is perhaps overshadowed by the treats of the Ogwen Valley and Snowdon but absolutely worth the journey to visit in its own right.

 large stone circle

 wild ponies

My walk reached a high point of 429m at Clip yr Orsedd, which means it incorporated a half-decent climb given the sea-level start, but it didnt feel like so much given the majority of the ascent (the arete excluded) was on very gentle slopes.

The working quarry came into sight, adding a more industrial vibe to this section of the route - for me this ignites my inner-engineer, I'm always fascinated by these places.

 'health and safety gates' on the upper section of the otherwise very non-distinct quarry trail

 the right of way seems seldom-used

Dead ahead once rose the mighty mountain of Penmaenmawr. It's been quarried down to a shadow of it's former glory. Sigh.

 there were numerous tanks like this, I'm not sure what they are for

What ensued was an absolute nightmare descent through dense and soaking-wet bracken, gorse, spider-webs, brambles and other thorny things, all at about head-height. I didn't take many photos but trust me it was horrible. The path is there but it's just rarely used and hideously overgrown. Maybe in winter when the bracken dies off it's a lovely jaunt, who knows, but as it was I had an awful time and my spirit was crushed by about halfway.  I battled on and on reaching the bottom of this path I realised I could just as readily have trotted down the quarry road which runs for the most part parallel to the 'path'. It would have been trespassing and the quarry was in action but I would still have taken the risk. I was soaked through and rather frustrated.

After a troublesome bit of route-finding around a huge pile of gravel and another trapse down a relatively civilised and more used-looking path, I emerged near someone's house at Penmaenan.

The route is completed by a walk along the sea-front. I must have still been in a bad mood because I didn't take any photos until I reached the Puffin Cafe:

I went in for a cold drink and the 'farm shop' seemed to be really depleted of stock with a lot of space on the shelves. I wondered what was up with the place. A nice can of Diet Irn Bru brought me slowly round. I reflected and realised I had missed one of the key objectives - I wanted to visit the Giant Clock of Penmaenmawr Quarry! I had just assumed this would be on the path. Turns out it's not, it's actually situated on private property 😞

 I went to Benllech on The Isle of Anglesey to sample the fish and chips at The Golden Fry. The fish was fantastic, amongst the best I have ever had, but the chips had clearly been sat there a while and were run-of-the mill, not really hot or fresh enough. I guess you can't have your cake and eat it mind... I progressed on to The Holy Island, hoping to find a nice coastal spot for a wild camp but on scouting the spot out it turned out to be surrounded with birds and right beside a coast-guard lookout post, so i resorted to plan-B, the good old Ogwen Valley.

The bank of cloud slowly crawled up the valley and eventually closed in on me for the evening...

On to the next day!

I scrambled up Tryfan using the Milestone Gully Aproach and North Ridge Routes:

 the 'baffling step' - I went around

Notch Rocks

 the summit

I carried on down the South Ridge and on up Bristly Ridge to Glyder Fach, which is probably my favourite scrambling route as it has a bit of everything...

 I took the Sinister Gully option. It's the one with the overhang.

I made my way to the true summits of Glyder Fach and Castell y Gwynt, then pressed on to Glyder Fawr. It was all in mist, so views were minimal.

We were treated to a momentary break in the cloud cover at Glyder Fawr Summit

I took compass bearings to navigate in the mist across rocky terrain to reach Senior's Ridge. I ran into a couple of lost people who had mistakenly turned off too soon from Glyder Fawr trying to reach the Devil's Kitchen Path. I pointed them back the way I had come. Easy to take navigation for granted when you have a smartphone with GPS but mist can be so confusing.  

 The coast-guard helicopter was nearby. To think someone was in trouble so near yet so out of reach on those cliffs was below me was sad.  Looking back I'm wondering if I could have found a way across to them, but I was in the middle of my own disaster. At 800m up on the lonely Senior's Ridge I went over terribly on my ankle and I pretty much had to hobble my way down to the car at Pont Pen-y-benglog.  I opted out of my planned descent of Senior's Gully for the path down from Cwm Cneifion.

What follows is the point where I really should have just gone home or paid for a spot in a campsite, but no, I had to go haul my stuff up a hill and do another wild camp.  Having read what I since have around ankle injuries after I got back home this was a terrible idea and I needed to be resting it but I can't change the past. The views were lovely though.

Well the journey up wasn't so bad, the pain gave me a restless night, but the journey back down in the morning, whilst really not far, was awful. I'm cringing at the pain just thinking about it!
So that's me strictly out of action for six weeks. I'm asking for extra shifts at work and basically going spare. Can't wait to be back out.